Saturday, February 4, 2012

Fantasy Masters

Last fall I started a couple new Savage Worlds campaigns. One, on Saturday evening, was using the old TSR AD&D Dragonlance campaign. The players made their own characters that I fit into the campaign (which is really written for use with pre-generated characters, but making your own is more fun). Around that time I’d painted some fun cartoony fantasy figures (Dork Tower and Cerebus and Thrud) which were a lot of fun and I also happened to start sculpting again and I got thinking… “Wouldn’t it be fun to do some cartoony figures for my players characters…?”

One Sunday afternoon in September I sat down and drew pictures of the various characters. A couple days later I got sculpting. It was going good for a bit – but it’s a long process for me and I got going on other things… and they only worked in fits and starts…

I had originally wanted to keep it a secret until I had them all done... but the project stalled and I also didn't get them done in time for Xmas (which I'd originally planned to do)... of course no one was really showing up for games in December anyway... so... Anyway, here's what I've got done so far!

Their backsides – all kitted out for adventuring. I was inspired a bit by Citadel Miniautres, who used to make some great character adventure figures that had lots of adventuring kit dangling off of them…

These are the masters of the above figures. They're kind of leaning against each other because otherwise they'd topple over... not terribly well balanced figures...

Unfortunately Curly is dead. He did die an “obscure death”, however... so I could conceivably reintroduce him to the campaign… washed out to sea… found half dead on the shore… captured by Draconians…

I was actually torn as to whether I should make moulds and cast them or just paint the masters. How many am I ever really going to need?! Ultimately I decided to make moulds and cast them. Though I lose some of the detail, I just really like the WEIGHT of metal minis…

I know what you mean about the casting and about liking metal figures. Even if you don't expect to need many at least with casting you have the ability to replace lost ones (or ones given away), and you might be able to make other figures from them with modifications.

These are amazingly good. The Norman looking fellow would be a fine representation for Snorri Hroriksson, my (human) Fighter character in a D&D campaign I've been involved in off and on for well over a year now...Cheers...Ion

I'd briefly thought about that, Cory - selling them to friends and/or blog followers - until I actually tried casting them. I had to cast a half dozen or so of each just to get one that cast "not-so-bad" - and even then I had to make minor modifications with green stuff... They're really awful as castings - but once they're cleaned up and painted up, they turn out okay...

If you're really interested I'll heat up the pot and see if I can't get a couple cast up just for you before the Campaign Weekend!